


Sanctuary

by TruebornAlpha



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Feudal Japan, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Second Chances, Tenderness, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 05:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15574989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruebornAlpha/pseuds/TruebornAlpha
Summary: The road Keith has taken is filled with violence and regret, but second chances find their way to even those who do not think they deserve them.Written for Chinese Lantern flowers for theHanakotoba Zine.





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Hanakotoba Zine.](https://hanakotobazine.tumblr.com)
> 
> The theme was _Chinese Lantern flowers._ Special thanks to [Vi {v-0-3},](http://v-0-3.tumblr.com/post/176520152172) and [Adrian {k-o-a}](http://k-o-a.tumblr.com/post/176529773209/i-can-finally-post-all-the-pieces-i-did-for) for their fantastic art!
> 
> It was wonderful being part of this project and great working with such talented people!

Another snowflake fluttered on the breeze. It caught on the tip of his lashes, but he was too tired to brush it away. With his breath in ragged gasps and vision fading out of focus, the cold was the least of Keith’s fears. Beneath him, snow slipped and crunched, clinging to his feet with every step until he wasn’t sure if he was moving at all. A storm was coming. It raced along the wind, blurring his tracks and with them, the pinpricks of crimson that dotted their way.

Keith was going to die here, his arm numb and pressed doggedly to his side to stave the bleeding, his legs too stubborn to give up, and no one to mourn his passing. Yet every time he closed his eyes, the galloping of frantic horses rang through his ears. Should his pursuers catch him, they would see death as too generous a courtesy. So he kept going.

He didn’t know who they were, not really. Not in any sense that mattered. He hadn’t been told names or stories, and couldn’t read them if he wanted to. That was the domain of other men, the same men who’d seen a lost lonely boy and given him a blade without any care to how he spent his life. But Keith had a mission, and with that mission had come purpose. He’d never failed before. Not that he’d cared about what success meant either.

Keith wished he’d known better. (He had known, he still did). Now it was out of his hands, and he had no one else to blame but himself.

A rush of icy wind battered his side and Keith gasped, falling to his knees with a hoarse groan. Fresh blood spilled across his tacky fingers, his world tilting precariously, but when he opened his eyes he saw something beyond the endless white of snow for the first time since he’d fled the city. Hidden beneath frozen bushes, trapped like a firefly cocooned in spider web was a tiny orange bud. How anything could survive the deathly cold, Keith didn’t know, but there were more of them. They followed a lazily winding path through the storm.

Something felt wrong, a nagging sense of reality turning in on itself. Weren’t those summer flowers? His head ached and his vision narrowed, world spinning dangerously as he stumbled onward. Real or not, they led the way like paper lanterns, bright as everything else faded to grey. He didn’t even feel cold anymore, he couldn’t feel anything. Hope was gone. Only stubbornness kept one foot moving in front of the other as he left a trail of red splattered in the pristine snow.

The trees thinned into a small grove as the flowers led the way, and for a moment, Keith could have sworn he saw a small, lonely shrine. Light flickered inside and he opened his mouth to call for help, but his voice was frozen in his throat. With a soft sigh, he collapsed in the snow.

Warmth.

Soft blankets and softer light, like someone had dimmed the lanterns for sleep. Keith breathed in the scents of wood smoke and incense, feeling safe for the first time in forever.

He must have made some sign he was awake because there was movement beside him and a smooth wooden cup was held to his lips. He gulped down a mouthful of clean water. “Slowly now, be careful.” A voice murmured, as comforting as the blankets around him. “You need rest.”

Keith couldn’t seem to focus his eyes, but he tried to argue anyways even as sleep claimed him. He thought he felt cool fingers brush against his forehead before it all faded to nothing.

The shadows were kind to him. It had been a long time since they were. The night was reserved for regrets when it wasn’t spent earning them.    
  
He didn’t want to wake, but his eyes still opened, sluggish and heavy and far too disoriented to be any good. This was wrong. He’d been running. They’d find him like this if they hadn’t already. He had to get moving, but his limbs felt too heavy and simultaneously, not heavy enough.   
  
“Knife…” Spoke a voice he did not recognize. Keith didn’t realize it was himself until he tried to stand. A heavy hand kept him still.   
  
“A foolish man turns his knife on his friends.” The warning was warm like spun cotton, binding him in trap Keith never wanted to leave. “But it takes a true fool to turn it on his healer.”   
  
A healer? Keith couldn’t afford one of those. The smell of incense still lingered, and in the shadows overhead, he saw long graceful characters of written text. But there was a cup to his lips, and the water it bore flowed like silk across his parched tongue.   
  
He took another drink, letting cool water dribble down his chin. A gentle hand wiped it away. Enough of his strength came back for him to speak. Keith was already sorry. “Don’t do this… They’re looking for me. They’ll hunt you too.”   
  
“Ah. You’re in luck. I’m hard to find.”   
  
Around him the shadows seemed to brighten. His savior came into a sight, a tall man with broad shoulders. He had a shock of white over his brow. It reflected the candlelight so well, Keith thought he’d been crowned in gold.

He was built like a warrior, face scarred from battle, but dressed in the simple robes of a priest. He knelt beside Keith’s bed and gently checked the bandages wrapped around his side as Keith tried not to flinch away. “Looks like this is healing well, you might just make it after all.”

“W-who are you? Where am I? I can’t stay here, they’re tracking me.” He pushed away from the priest and tried to stand, but pain split down his side and he gasped.

“Time enough to run later, right now you still need more rest.” The priest said, helping him settle back down. “And you’re safe. This place is protected, no one will find you here. The storm covered your tracks.” He smiled, never once asking what Keith was running from. “You can call me Shiro.”

“Shiro.” No family name or clan, but if the priest didn’t ask for his secrets, Keith would do the same. “Thank you.”

The priest was right, no one came hunting through the snow to their hidden sanctuary, and Keith was able to stay awake a little longer each day as his strength returned. Shiro tended the tiny shrine by himself, keeping the polished wooden floors gleaming and offering prayers at the well-tended altar covered in flowers as thin trails of smoke curled up towards the ceiling. They shared each meal Shiro cooked, simple but filling, and Keith discovered how warm the priest’s laugh could be.

“Why are you helping me?” He asked one night, almost afraid of the answer. “I’m not what you think I am.”

Shiro looked up from his work, settled between Keith's legs with a salve in hand, eyes dark with all the words he never said. A not quite-smile curved along his mouth. Keith realized it was the first smile he didn’t truly like.    
  
The priest traced along the lines of Keith’s bandages before he carefully eased them off. The wound beneath was ugly and jagged, dead where the cold had gotten it, but the living tissue could be healed. With a damp cloth, Shiro started dabbing across its edge, cleaning away flecks of dried blood.    
  
“This is the line of a sword’s edge, but messy and uneven, drawn by an unskilled hand.”   
  
He moved towards the thickest part of the wound, cool water prickling like the gentlest needle on Keith’s feverish skin.    
  
“This is where the blade twisted in, and miracles kept you alive.”   
  
Keith frowned, butterflies come alive in his belly, but Shiro was looking at him again, so close Keith couldn’t breathe. He took Keith’s right hand in his, cradling his palm like he was afraid he could hurt him.   
  
“And this is the hand of a swordsman. One who has yet to master his craft.”   
  
Keith shuddered, a rush of regret and shame coiling around his throat like a noose.

“How does a priest know all of that?” Keith whispered, and Shiro shrugged.

“I wasn’t always a priest. A man can change, given the chance.”

Keith looked down at his hands and remembered the feeling of blood between his fingers. He’d been a killer for as long as he could remember, a poor nameless nobody trained to be a weapon and nothing more. He killed for coin and for survival, never for honor, used and then passed from hand to hand.  Keith never learned how to read wounds, the only thing that mattered was which ones were fatal. “You’re a good man, I’m-”

“My guest.” Shiro cut in before Keith could finish, and that was all he would say about that.

Days turned to weeks, and still the snow surrounded them. Keith’s body mended, and he joined Shiro in his daily chores. They cleaned the shrine together. They gathered the bright fruits of the lantern plants for medicine. They cooked their meals and ate them together. In the evening, they would bathe in the little hot spring beside the shrine. Slowly, Keith stopped looking for excuses to run and found his own rhythm in Shiro’s quiet world, and maybe his own measure of peace.

Shiro never offered his past, but Keith could see them clearly when he stepped out of his robes and slipped into the hot waters, body hard with muscle, cruel scars, and one arm a ruined stump. He couldn’t read their stories as easily, but they spoke of pain and the priest shuddered when Keith ran his hands across them, drifting closer in the water. For once, Shiro seemed hesitant and Keith’s hands had anything but healing in mind.

“I’m not what you think I am.” He murmured as Keith cupped his face, skin flushed from heat and his own racing heart. “I’m-”

“A good man.” Keith echoed his own words. “And my friend.”

Shiro’s eyes widened, so wonderfully shy. It made Keith’s heart flutter in the cage of his chest.    
  
A friend and so much more.   
  
He leaned in, daring and brave like he hadn’t felt in so long, and Shiro opened up to him so sweetly, warm and smooth beneath Keith’s mouth. Keith had never been one for prayer, but this felt distinctly divine.    
  
The seasons changed. His wounds healed, and scars lingered like the lantern flowers that led his way through the snow. Keith began learning the more intricate aspects of medicine, hands turned to healing and protection instead of death. The devotees from the village called him a nice young man, and sometimes brought fresh buns when they came to see Shiro. It was a humble life. It was a good one.    
  
One night when Shiro was called to the city as a healer, he left Keith to guard the shrine, trusting everything to the man who’d taken his heart. Keith took on his duties with pride, surprised to find himself someone who could be relied on. He cleaned the little shrine and offered prayers, following the rituals he’d only watched Shiro do as best he could. When he was finished, he opened the cabinets and placed his broom inside. He’d never noticed the compartment at the bottom before. Never thought to look.   
  
Curiosity was a potent drug, and Keith pulled it open. Inside was a broken sword, stained along its shattered blade, the handle worn and unpolished but still a wicked thing. A katana. The sword of the samurai and noblemen, the powerful Shirogane family crest shining dull gold in the light. There were only two ways to stop being a samurai: death or dishonor.

_ A man can change given the chance. _

Very carefully, Keith closed it away and decided they would have soup for dinner.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find Dans [here.](http://itdans.tumblr.com/)  
> Rune's tumblr is [here](http://runicscribbles.tumblr.com/) and our joint twitter is [here.](http://twitter.com/runicscribbles)
> 
> Please comment if you enjoyed! Come say hello. :)


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